“The … moat?” I repeated blankly.
“Aaron’s family lives in a castle, you know.”
I peered at his grave expression, then snorted loudly. “Nice try, Ezra.”
He widened his eyes innocently. “I’m serious.”
Aaron laughed.
Sin gave up on enduring the cold, and Aaron and Kai followed her into the ferry’s warm interior. Ezra, however, didn’t move, so I turned to watch the frothing water tumble away from the ferry’s stern. The engines growled noisily and cloying fumes mixed with the briny ocean scent on the breeze.
“Should we be worried?” I asked him, propping my elbows on the railing. “For real?”
“Aaron’s parents will welcome you with open arms,” he assured me. That didn’t mesh with the tiny bit I knew about Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair—mainly, that they didn’t approve of anything their son did. They didn’t like his guild, his career choices, or his girlfriends. “Aside from them, the academy has three types of mythic: the students, the staff, and the non-staff guild members.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Sinclair Academy is a school and a guild. When students graduate at eighteen, they can join the Sinclair guild or move on to a different one, like Aaron and Kai did. If they join the Sinclair guild, they continue with advanced training and might eventually take a staff position.”
I studied the shadow in his eyes that meant he was holding back his true thoughts.
“The staff are professional,” he murmured, choosing his words carefully, “but the older students and the members in advanced training can be …”
“Rich snobs?” I suggested. “Arrogant twits? Condescending snowflakes?”
“Judgmental,” he finished with a laugh. “I’d call them judgmental. Nearly all the mages at the academy are gifted, and in their eyes, everyone else is lesser.”
“You aren’t lesser,” I snapped, firing up immediately. “You’re stronger than Aaron or Kai and you—”
“As an aeromage, I have below-average power,” he interrupted matter-of-factly. “I don’t care what they think, but be prepared for some attitude from the academy alumni.”
Huffing, I folded my arms. “Good thing Aaron isn’t an arrogant, judgmental twit.”
Ezra made a noncommittal noise and absently ran his thumb over his chin, then paused as though surprised to find it clean-shaven. As I watched his hand drop, my pulse did an odd, twitchy patter. I reached up and stroked my fingertips across his smooth jaw. He blinked, his gaze darting to mine.
“What’s with the new look?” I asked, my tone light and teasing.
“Aaron’s mom prefers it. She can’t stand ‘half a beard.’”
I bit the inside of my cheek, then blurted, “You shouldn’t change your appearance just because she doesn’t like it.”
“It wasn’t any trouble. It took less than five minutes.”
“But—”
He swept his arm around my waist and scooped me against his side. “Let’s find the others. I can’t feel my ears anymore.”
I gulped as he pulled me through the door. He held me casually close as we walked past rows of blue-cushioned seats on steel frames bolted to the floor. Panoramic windows offered an endless view of steely water, the faint silhouette of land in the distance.
Ezra didn’t lower his arm until we’d reached Aaron, Kai, and Sin, who were lounging on seats. I scooted past their legs and took the spot beside Sin. Ezra slid in after me and sat on my other side. Stifling a yawn with one hand, he slouched on the cushions and let his head fall back.
My heart tumbled all over itself as I exhaled an entire lungful of air. I whipped out my phone and started scrolling, pretending to be absorbed in my third cousin’s baby-daddy drama.
So … I maybe had a small problem.
Aaron, Kai, and Ezra were my best friends. Like family. I’d dated Aaron for a couple of months before the relationship fizzled out, but our friendship had solidified in the aftermath and was stronger than ever. Kai was mouthwateringly gorgeous, but he was also a playboy—sort of a playboy—and that alone would’ve been all the “no” I needed had he ever shown interest in me. Besides that, he was in love with someone else.
Then there was Ezra. He was my sweetheart of a terrifying demon mage. Thoughtful, generous, always had a smile for me no matter what was going on. He could make me laugh with the perfectly timed arch of his eyebrow. His buttery smooth voice soothed my worries, and his touch …
His touch, his embrace—they used to calm me.
Hunched in my seat, I glared at my phone. It was all Aaron’s fault. At the end of our first workout together, he’d made me sit on Ezra during competitive pushups to sabotage the aeromage’s victory. The combination of hot exertion, flexing muscles, and the motion itself had triggered something in my horny brain, and I could. Not. Stop. Thinking. About. It.
For six freaking weeks!
Every time Ezra got close to me, the memories all came rushing back. His body radiating heat, his skin slick and steaming, his breathing heavy. Hard muscles bunching and flexing under my thighs.
My breath whooshed out of my lungs. Sin glanced at me, then resumed her conversation with Aaron. I slid down in my seat, guilty and flushed.
Beside me, Ezra’s head was tilted back, his eyes closed. Maybe I couldn’t get past the pushups thing because I hadn’t seen him enough lately to … desensitize … or whatever. Yeah. That was probably it.
Probably. If it wasn’t, I didn’t know what the hell I would do.
Aaron’s SUV wound along the twisting road. Trees crowded the pavement, barren branches reaching toward the gray sky. Monstrous evergreens and spruces stood proudly among their leafless cousins, thick boughs dusted with crisp white snow—rare for this climate. Usually, it rained nonstop.
“How much farther?” I asked, leaning over the center console to peer through the windshield. Ezra was in the passenger seat, head bowed forward as he napped.
“Almost there,” Aaron replied, watching the road as flakes twirled down and melted on the wet pavement. “We entered the academy grounds at the last turn.”
“When was that?” I muttered, trying to remember a turn.
“Ten minutes ago,” Kai told me. “The academy owns, what, twelve hundred acres of forest?”
“About that,” Aaron answered as he slowed the car. “The academy buildings are that way.”
He slowed further as we passed a left turn, and I glimpsed a white building through the brush. My stomach did a nervous dance on top of my kidneys. Or liver. Or whatever organ my stomach was on top of. The narrow road continued and the forest gave way to manicured trees and smooth lawns, still green despite the frosting of fresh snow.
Directly ahead, an old-fashioned stone wall peeked through the thick branches of the mature trees lining the road.
Aaron took a hand off the wheel and tapped Ezra’s shoulder. “Wake up, buddy. We’re almost at the house.”
Ezra inhaled sleepily and sat up straighter. “Already?”
We zoomed toward the stone wall, which was growing larger, then the road curved. I craned my neck, my eyes going wider and wider. The car rolled alongside the building, then pulled underneath a covered carriage porch that stretched across the road—no, not the road. The driveway.